42.195km bitch!

As of now, I am in pain. A whole lot of pain. I am also in a new found relationship. I love/hate relationship. With marathons.

I'm pretty sure I do not want to do another marathon. But the feeling that you get when you run it, well, you have to do it to experience it. The feeling of accomplishment when you complete it. The feeling of camaraderie you have with all the other suffering runners. The "runners high" you get for pushing yourself to the limit. I can see why people would run it again and again.

Shout outs to:
-Girl in pink top and white cap who some how always appears in front of me despite me overtaking her countless times.
-Guy in Santa hat, you made my day.
-Guy with hairy upper arms. I kid you not. I thought they were tattoos until I got close enough to see it was all long curly hair.
-Girl who decided to keep pace with me for the last 500 meters after I encouraged her to "Come On!"

All the other nameless strangers who were there running, walking, cursing beside me for the whole 42.195km.

Also thankful for the conspicuous amounts of powergel that I consumed that allowed me to push all the way to 30km before I hit a wall and had to run/walk/jog/curse the rest of the way.

It better be only half-marathons from now on. Someone stop me if I try to sign up for another marathon.

Running

It has sort of crept up on me unnoticed. 6th Dec 2009. D-day. Call it whatever you want, but that is the day I will fulfill my 2008 resolution. Yes, it's one year late, but better late then never, yah?

In 2008, I made the resolution to run a marathon. I wanted to do it before I got too old and sort of fell apart. Unfortunately, work dealt me a cruel blow, sending me into exile in Melbourne just before I was due to run the Run.

This year, I'm back and I've set a date for my showdown with the beast. All 42.195 km of it. And I realized I'm woefully unprepared. The furthest I've run is around 16 km. I don't really feel too bad doing it and to be honest it's a little no-kick these days, albeit really really mind-blowingly boring. I plan to do a 20+++ km run next week and then it should be time for the moment of truth.

If you don't see me after 6th of Dec, you will know I have fought the good fight. I will not go quietly into the cold dark night. I will go down fighting. Or I will emerge victorious, and never have to stare down a 42.195km beast ever again.

Crap! Gotta run. Need to take a dump

It's just sinking in, I'm going to run a marathon in 31 days. This is scary. I haven't actually been training as diligently as I like. It's so boring, just running for hours to an end.

That being said, I did go for a run 2 days back, only to meet the most unfortunate of circumstances. You see, I was faced with a need to take a dump while on a run.

The thing is, it was in the middle of no where, with nary a toilet in sight. So I had to soldier on. Unfortunately, the more I wanted to run, the more I felt I was losing control of my bowels.

And thus a dilemma: Do I run faster so I can get back home to take a dump and risk shitting in my pants? Or do I try to take it slow and try to control my bowels but walk as fast as possible home.

I chose the later option and made it home safe and clean.

On a side note, was reading Terry Pratchet's latest book: Nation, and it gave a rather interesting explanation of my previous predicament. Namely, when you are scared, your first instinct is to run. When running away, you want to be as light as possible, and that means letting go off everything that you don't need, and that includes Merde.

I'm alive

Post

Run

Just about to embark on a 21km run. Wish me luck.

If I don't post again, you know I didn't make it.